Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) FAQs

5-day DIT training is provided for psychoanalytically/psycho-dynamically trained practitioners in order to hone their pre-existing skills to deliver an effective brief psychodynamic intervention for the treatment of depression. Training occurs as a CPD course over 5 days where practitioners will learn the necessary framework to conduct a time-limited (16 sessions) manualised psychodynamic therapy. In order to pursue DIT accreditation trainees are required to attend the full training, pass a roleplay (step 1) and successfully complete supervision of two concurrent cases (step 2) before passing a case study (step 3).

20-day DIT training is an extended DIT training course which is offered to counsellors and psychologists who do not meet all psychodynamic competencies (recognised by the Expert Reference Group on Clinical Competencies) in order to practice as a psychoanalytic/psychodynamic practitioner. The 20-day DIT training is an extended version of the 5-day practitioner course and requires a much longer period of commitment. Requirements of this 20-day DIT course include pre-course reading and assessment, 20 days of live teaching via zoom, masterclasses and passing a role play before close clinical supervision of a minimum of 3 cases. The 20-day DIT training is at a postgraduate level and requires a pre-existing Diploma level qualification in counselling or a psychology doctorate degree as a minimum entry requirement.

Applicants also need to have current full BACP, UKCP, or HCPC registration as part of their core qualification. Applications from alternative professional accreditation bodies can be considered on a case-by-case basis. For the 20-day DIT training there is no requirement for experience of personal psychodynamic psychotherapy, although this would be preferrable and we would encourage you to access this during the training.

Dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT) and interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) have several common features, but they are not the same therapy and the approaches draw on distinct competencies.

Read more about the differences between DIT and IPT

DIT CC (DIT for Complex Care) is a two-day advanced training for qualified DIT practitioners to apply the DIT model to a complex patient group in secondary care. The training assumes existing knowledge of working with the 16-session model of DIT and that clinicians have the requisite competence. The DIT CC course focuses on modifications and extensions to the model and emphasises particular skills, like mentalizing, developing epistemic trust, stabilisation techniques and risk management. The adapted DIT CC model is a 28-session approach that is based on the published results of a pilot study carried out in Newham (Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 33(7) 1-22; August 2019.

The training days include pre-course reading, an overview of the new model and opportunities to apply new skills. Please note, if you are not already a DIT practitioner, you would need to complete the 20-Day or 5-Day DIT training to then go on and train in DIT CC.

Please refer to the relevant sections of the Anna Freud website for further information.

While there are no formal clinical trials currently published which confirm the effectiveness of DIT with children and adolescents, anecdotal evidence of DIT with adolescents and young adults is very encouraging. Many advances in the application of DIT are currently underway, including DIT for use as a group therapy, work with post-natal depression and trauma.

After being accredited and having completed your first year as an accredited DIT therapist it would be possible to offer a 12-session model to appropriate patients where there is a good clinical rationale for that. In those cases, we would suggest a 3 session initial phase, 6 session middle phase and 3 session ending phase, as an adjustment of the original 16 session model.

However, whilst still new to the model as an accredited therapist, we would not suggest that DIT practitioners alter the model too much as they are still gaining experience in working in DIT within 16 sessions.

The DIT trainings are recognised by the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) as kite-marked trainings and allows clinicians qualified in DIT through the 5-Day and 20-Day routes to register on the BPC kite-marked register of DIT practitioners, for a fee payable to the BPC. Please note that having a BPC accredited course is not equivalent to BPC accreditation.

While you may have trained in more than one modality, psychodynamic experience is an essential requirement. This includes a psychodynamic component in practitioner training, psychodynamic supervision of clinical work and, in the case of the 5-day training, attendance for personal therapy with a psychodynamic/psychoanalytic practitioner. If some time has passed since your core training and/or you feel uncertain as to your ability to apply the principles of psychodynamic work, we recommend you consider the 20-day DIT training course, where you will be provided with more opportunities to freshen your skillset and consolidate learning.

Yes, we need to see documents confirming each requirement, as per the British Psychoanalytic Council accreditation stipulation.

Applicants should do their best to contact their therapist and obtain a written reference (this can be in an e-mail form) of their personal therapy. However, if special circumstances where this isn’t possible (e.g. if the therapist is deceased) we will consider written confirmation from the applicant.

It is helpful to have a course of DIT ahead of attending the training, but otherwise it is good to have had an experience of personally receiving psychodynamic or psychoanalytic therapy.

Personal therapy or a personal experience of DIT is not a requirement for the 20-Day DIT course, but it is highly recommended and it could support your learning while you are on the course.

Experience of personal therapy is a requirement for attending the 5-Day DIT course, and you can read more about this on the 5-Day DIT webpage.

While NHS Talking Therapies funded places take priority for enrolment, we are currently accepting expressions of interest from potential trainees who are not employed in an NHS Talking Therapies service. Such applicants will need to secure a funding arrangement of £9950 (this includes supervision and assessments) which will be paid in full before training commences.

Application forms can be found on the Anna Freud website where you can register your interest. All application forms will need to be accompanied by a statement from your clinical supervisor and line manager (send to dit@annafreud.org once completed) confirming your suitability. We recommend checking course dates on the website to ensure your availability to attend. Confirmation of a place on the course will be provided three weeks in advance of the start date.

Yes, as long as you can provide evidence of professional registration, meet the eligibility requirements and can complete supervised clinical work for the purposes of training, you can do the 5-Day DIT training. 5-Day DIT training is currently being offered remotely with teaching via Zoom and electronic access to course reading materials. Weekly clinical supervision is provided remotely via Microsoft Teams.

Please note that non-UK trainees will need to source and gain consent from suitable patients for training purposes. Anna Freud takes no responsibility for clinical governance and will require written confirmation from the applicant's service lead stating their agreement to attend to all clinical responsibilities, including case management, relating to patient work.

Trainees who are funded through an agreement with Anna Freud, such as NHS Talking Therapies services, are provided with access to an accredited supervisor for the purposes of completing training requirements towards accreditation as a DIT practitioner. A list of accredited supervisors is available on the Anna Freud website for practitioners who wish to pursue a private arrangement for supervision.

Once practitioners achieve DIT accreditation status, they are required to continue with supervision with an accredited supervisor for a period of one year, with a ratio of one hour of supervision for every 12 hours of clinical contact. Following one-year post-qualification, DIT therapists can avail of peer supervision subject to their supervisor's agreement for them to continue independently.

If supervision post-qualification is conducted in a group, supervision should follow the same approach as standard. If there are three people and they each take turns in an hour-long supervision group, for example, then these people would be presenting roughly once a month and that would equate to seeing three cases of DIT. We would leave it up to the supervisor to work out a fair approach, as long as the supervision was proportionate to the amount of DIT that the clinicians are providing. The requirements are different at different stages of post qualifying.

When you begin supervision in the 20-Day DIT training course, you will have 18 months from the start of supervision to complete your clinical work (including 3 case logs and your reflective essay) on the course.

After completing the 5-Day DIT course, there is a timeframe of three months in which to begin training cases under supervision. Where a period of more than nine months has lapsed since attending the 5-Day DIT training course, the trainee is required to attend a refresher training course before commencing clinical work. If more than two years have lapsed since attending the 5-Day DIT training course, a full training course will need to be repeated before clinical work can commence. Once a trainee has begun supervision, they should complete their two training cases within 15 months, and their case study should be written up within one month of completing the training cases. In special circumstances, clarification may be requested from Anna Freud (dit@annafreud.org) around timelines. Such queries will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Following successful accreditation as a DIT practitioner, some clinicians may wish to proceed towards gaining accreditation as a DIT supervisor. As part of this requirement, DIT supervisees will need to be secured. For the purposes of DIT supervisor accreditation, potential supervisors will need to train up by supervising trainee-DIT practitioners so that they can gain experience of using clinical rating scales, marking clinical course work and providing supervision to trainees throughout the course of their training journey. Supervisors who intend to supervise qualified DIT practitioners only will not be in a position to take on trainee-DIT practitioners without experience of doing this work under supervision. 

If an applicant needs support to source trainee DIT practitioners in order to provide supervision, they can contact the Anna Freud Centre at DIT@annafreud.org to discuss this further.

For 20-Day DIT, at least two of your three training cases need to be seen in-person.

For 5-Day DIT, at least one of your two training cases needs to be seen in-person.

For DIT Supervisor training, both of your two training cases need to be seen in-person.

We reduced this requirement during Covid-19 but have returned to our standard in-person requirement. This is an essential requirement for attending DIT training. Thank you for your understanding.

The online platform, Zoom, is currently being used to deliver DIT training. Prior to booking , please ensure you meet the system requirements so that you are able to join training. Before the training, please test if your equipment is working by going to Zoom.us/test and following the instructions.

System requirements:

• an internet connection - broadband wired or wireless (3G or 4G/LTE)

• speakers and a microphone - built-in, USB plug-in or wireless Bluetooth

• a webcam or HD webcam - built-in, USB plug-in or:

  • an HD cam or HD camcorder with a video-capture care (Note: See the list of supported devices available via a link on the Anna Freud website).

  • virtual camera software for use with broadcasting software like OBS or IP cameras

• Note: For MacOS, Zoom client 5.1.1 or higher is required.

Trainees are also required to attend clinical supervision and to video-record clinical sessions for the purposes of marking DIT competencies using a rating scale. Trainees will need to check permissions with their service lead in order to agree a suitable method for clinical recording which meets the required standards for their organisation's information governance. Currently, many trainees have obtained consent to use Microsoft TEAMS for supervision and sessional recordings. Recordings will need to be stored and shared with a supervisor via confidential means (e.g. a private channel on Microsoft TEAMS) and guidance will be provided for trainees to set this up. Remote supervision will also take place via a secure platform and trainees will need to access this on a weekly basis for the duration of their clinical work.

Trainees completing the 5-day DIT training are required to submit a clinical case study of 3000 words following successful completion of their clinical work. Case studies will be marked against a particular criteria which will assist the trainee to show evidence of their clinical competencies in delivering DIT.

Trainees completing the 20-day DIT training course are required to complete three case logs in total for formal marking purposes. The 20-day DIT training course requires case logs of 3000 words each, submitted within one month of the completion of clinical work with three successive DIT training cases. Case logs are marked against certain criteria as developed by the course in order to demonstrate progression in clinical competence across the three report submissions.

Guidance for submission of course work is provided to trainees during training.

DIT trainees will need to pay a submission fee of £150 for the purposes of independent, formal marking. For most NHS-funded trainees, they will not need to pay this fee, unless they are late submitting their case study.

We recommend in the 5-Day training that the two training cases are seen consecutively and not simultaneously so that learning from the first case can be applied with the second. An indicative case that is not supervised can be seen alongside the supervised and assessed case.

For the 20-Day DIT training, we recommend that the first case is seen in its entirety, then the clinician can start a second case with a third case being added at the discretion of the DIT supervisor. If someone is getting on well with the model, then the second and third cases can overlap. Where the clinician is in group supervision, this will stop and individual supervision of two cases will take over, with a return to the group as the clinician's work allows.

Again, for the 20-Day DIT course, we suggest an indicative case can be seen alongside the training case. We don’t recommend that clinicians training in DIT have bigger DIT caseloads as this will not be supervised closely enough and may lead to their own ways of working that are not necessarily on model.

We send out e-certificates upon a trainee’s successful completion of the course. We will sometimes offer a paper certificate when a training is attended in-person, but this is not our standard procedure.

As an organisation we are committed to minimising our paper and we encourage individuals to print their emailed certificate if a printed copy is desired.

Once the course is completed, and you have qualified as a DIT practitioner, there is a CPD requirement to have one hour of DIT supervision for every 12 hours of DIT therapy work for the first year of work as a DIT practitioner. This equates to an hour of supervision a month if you have a caseload of three DIT patients. This supervision does not count towards accreditation as a supervisor; however, it is helpful to consolidate a working understanding of the model by gaining more experience before going on to becoming a supervisor. Beyond the first year, we advise using peer supervision of DIT work. Please contact Anna Freud or consult the BPC website to source local DIT practitioners. Supervision should be with an accredited DIT Supervisor. To maintain DIT practitioner status, there is a requirement to see at least one patient a year

There is a requirement for all DIT supervisors to attend at least one CPD event in supervision a year to maintain their qualification. This can be achieved by attending a supervisors’ workshop at Anna Freud, teaching a DIT course or shadowing one of the DIT training days at Anna Freud.